This morning, a dozen black-headed, white-bottomed ducks, paddling through the ice on the river.

[I lead such] an internal life – short on adventure and anecdote.
Who but me cares that the falcon was in the garden today; the flicker
at the feeder? Filling up my tiny garden with their large bird selves.
Or that I am up in the night, needy for sleep, but unable to track it.
Listening to my dog chew his bone.

No light in the sky tonight – first quarter moon, they say, but I can't find that, either.

Building a life from pain and small-moon nights; from sparrows and
finches and box elder bugs. The things one notices in the day, and in
the wide night hours.

Looking for the dark (or the light) that will fold one in.

February

The garden is full of chickadees this morning, and snow. Not a single sparrow.

the shadow of snow on snow

awakened
by freight train whistle
the full moon

A large bird flies over the skylight. Abigail sees a flash of light; I see the wings' dark shadow.

On reading my [02003] Solstice Letter,
Abigail observes that most people live their (busy) lives
"horizontally", along the surface; but I live "vertically"; that I have
the time and space this requires.

Time. Space. The gifts of illness.

March

"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." Thomas Mann

This morning, from habit, I put on my down jacket and gloves to go out with the dogs, and we step into a bright spring day.

Warm sun. It makes me want to

go up
in a float plane

and come down
at Tenakee Springs.

Thursday 11 March 02004: This morning, a family of Canada geese is floating under the bridge.
Momma, papa, and four goslings, serenely ignoring a loud, harassing
crow. We often have ducks, but I've never seen geese raise their
families here. Perhaps they are passing through.

Why, on this day with another 190 dead from terrorism, do I find this consoling?

From Overlap via lime tree: Poetry has the capacity to deal with the nonevents of life in a way that other art forms couldn't possibly manage.

who regrets
the passing of winter
the coming of spring?

Yesterday, a note from my aunt telling me that Mom had taken my
stepfather to the hospital. My mother would not have told me so
quickly, not wanting to worry me. He's there now for a few
days, "observation", though the doctors assure us it is most likely a
medication reaction; a minor problem.

He is 92 and slowly diminishing. Is there a "minor problem" at 92?

the spider
weaves her web
in the windchimes

Yesterday it was 78 degrees here, a record high. I sat in my garden
with my notebook. I've hardly had a pen in my hand since I began this
weblog. Noisy spring, birds and squirrels courting and quarreling, a
wasp cruising the edge of the pond.